Separating? Why multiple pulls? Lab ware?

[reduxredux]

The only problems I have been having lately have related to purely physical considerations. I don't have a good method of separating layers (all of the basters and droppers I have used do not work well; also, how do you employ a separatory funnel if the basic layer clings to the sides of the container?) and I was wondering why exactly you need to do multiple pulls of solvent. Wouldn't using more solvent simply pull more alkaloids out, so that you could do one pull and be done with it?

Also I was curious if anyone knew a good place to learn how to set up a lab with all of the necessary components (beakers, tubes, separatory funnel). I would really like to set up a small lab and learn how to use it but I have no chemistry background and can't take a class at the moment. It seems straightforward but I can't learn that well visually. I am intrigued by Soxhlet extractors and stuff but I can't even figure out how it works after studying pictures of it.

Thanks for any help. I find this forum completely invaluable.

Buy yourself a nasal aspirator and use a milk jug. The aspirator can hold a lot of solvent but is small enough and gentle enough to be able to get that last little bit out without a problem. I can't stand basters for this job. You can squeeze the milk jug so that all of the solvent is squeezed up at the neck (you'll need the jug pretty full of liquid to do this). I can easily get out all but a few drops of naphtha in a few quick minutes doing it this way. If a tad of basified juice gets in the collection jar, I simply suck the naphtha out again using the aspirator leaving the black juice and a tad of naphtha which goes back in the jug.

No idea about the set up though. sorry.

 

[histones]

so you wanna be a mad scientist?

lab's can have any multitude of expensive fancy equipment, it all depends on what you wanna do with it, you could have everything from particle accelerators to petri dishes, it doesnt matter much without an education though. In fact; without an education some of it could be dangerous.

the "one big pull" question was a question i had as well, i assume there ultimately is no difference, provided you use the "total" amount of solvent to be used, and agitate it multiple times. I think its about the emulsion settling out, i think that is where the migration of the alkaloids occurs most. Someone on the boards mentioned "imagine the spice sweating into solution" remember, it has a lot to do with what solvent you are using. research DCM, you need less of it and its safer. Naphtha is not the greatest for this kind of work.

if you want a lab, look at your kitchen. it is a food lab, you have an ice box, a heat source, a flow hood, running water... you have places where you store certain things away from other things. having a lab takes much the same logic.. it is in fact a "special kitchen" that contains special tools for special jobs,

you just have to know what you wanna eat.

 

[acolon_5]

the "one big pull" question was a question i had as well, i assume there ultimately is no difference, provided you use the "total" amount of solvent to be used, and agitate it multiple times. I think its about the emulsion settling out, i think that is where the migration of the alkaloids occurs most.

One big pull does not equal multiple smaller pulls, even if the volume of total solvent is the same. I can't explain it quite right but it has to do with the concentration of dmt in solvent and the law of equillibrium. When there is no dmt in the solvent there is a greater push for the DMT to cross over from polar to non-polar. As the solvent gets more saturated there is less of a push. Doing multiple pulls will increase the mean "push" thus increasing yields, to a point of course.

I belive this is correct. If anyone can expand or dispute this argument it would be appreciated.

 

[Infundibulum]

Acolon, you are correct, it has to do with equilibrium laws, not necessarily with the amount of naphtha needed to absorb the dmt from a basic solution.

Although far from correct, this is an illustrative example of what is happening during pulls, assuming that each naphtha pull is theoretically enough to absorb all the dmt from a basic solution;

Just assume that in each pull 50% of total dmt is recovered

1st pull: one gets a total of 50% of it out
2nd pull: one gets a total of 75% of it out
3rd pull: one gets a total of 87.5 of it out
and so on...

Just by making a "one big pull" in this particular example you may get 65% out, definitely far from efficient.

 

[acolon_5]

Thanks Ronue,

I knew someone could explain it much better than I could.

This is the reason that I push people to adopt smaller pulls. I hear people using 1-2L of solvent for a Kilo of bark and it just doesn't make sense. You can get all of the DMT out using only 300mL split up into 50-75mL pulls. The naphtha can be reused after freeze precipitation and 6-7 pulls total can be done.

I know others on this forum push for the use of DCM, but it is more expensive, harder to get, must be distilled or purified someway before it can be used(most people do not have access to a still!), and is not practical for most kitchen chemists. This is why the naphtha teks are popular. Naphtha is a suitable solvent (maybe not the best, but certianly useable) as long as minor heat is used or multiple pulls over a few days are used (for cold naphtha pulls). People can get 1% yields from naphtha if done correctly.

I see no reason to switch over to a solvent that costs more, is harder to get, requires a lot more steps to get to a final product (distilling AND cleaning up evap product), ends up with a less clean product, and does not significantly increase yields.

 

[69ron]

I know others on this forum push for the use of DCM, but it is more expensive,

Quite true.

harder to get

Also true, especially in some parts of the world. But in other parts DCM is easier to get than naphtha.

must be distilled or purified someway before it can be used(most people do not have access to a still!), and is not practical for most kitchen chemists.

No. There are places that sell it OTC in extremely clean forms that do not require distillation. PM me if you want to know where.

Even when using naphtha, you should distill it. I would never use any solvent that wasn’t first distilled unless it was specifically USP or FCC grade.

This is why the naphtha teks are popular.

I believe the naphtha techs are on their way out as cleaner, easier, less toxic techs are being introduced. SWIM is working on several that don’t require any toxic chemicals at all. All work but need to be refined before they are published.

Once we have techs that don’t use dangerous bases and dangerous solvents, no one will be using the naphtha techs anymore.

I am not fond of using any non-polar solvent for any plant extraction. Not even DCM. I like DCM more than naphtha, but would rather use water, alcohol, or at worst MEK (found in fruit), acetone (found in fruit and the human body) or limonene (found in fruit). Those are all natural solvents. The best being water.

SWIM HAS EXTRACTED CONCENTRATED DMT WITH JUST WATER AS A SOLVENT!

SWIM is working out the details and will publish it when he is done.

SWIM's goal is to create an extraction procedure that is so simple that anyone can do it without any lab equipment or any dangerous chemicals.

Naphtha is a suitable solvent (maybe not the best, but certianly useable) as long as minor heat is used or multiple pulls over a few days are used (for cold naphtha pulls). People can get 1% yields from naphtha if done correctly.

The problem is it can’t extract the N-Oxides so you lose a lot of active alkaloids that way. DCM will extract the N-Oxides and nearly every alkaloid there is, so you always get better yields using DCM. It’s completely impossible to get better yields using naphtha because naphtha can’t extract all of the active alkaloids in Mimosa hostilis.

Sometimes Mimosa hostilis, if old, contains mostly DMT N-Oxide. Such material produces very good yields with DCM, but next to nothing with naphtha.

SWIM likes DMT N-Oxide more than DMT and because you can’t extract that with naphtha, SWIM sees no point in using naphtha except to isolate DMT from the other alkaloids.

 

[Spiceman]

Swim has been doing a one pull method for awhile now. Its not like you may think however. Swim has found a way to get the goods from up to a kilo or two or three.. ahem yeah.. of bark into a half a quart jar of liquid... acidify, defat, basify .. add solvent.. set it on a good ol'e homemade (what do they call the lab thingy that spins? lol) for a couple hours and boom .. one pull and out snows christmas.. oh i mean grams upon grams .. uh i mean pounds.. no thats not right but you get the picture... swim has seriously debated putting this tek out there for the greater good but has his reservations for very special reasons. Hmm maybe he can draw it up and put it out there in a few days. He will sleep on it. Anyways one pull is possible but He has to agree multiple pulls are the only way to go on these normal teks. Its just physics. Peace you all !

 

[69ron]

Acolon, you are correct, it has to do with equilibrium laws, not necessarily with the amount of naphtha needed to absorb the dmt from a basic solution.

Although far from correct, this is an illustrative example of what is happening during pulls, assuming that each naphtha pull is theoretically enough to absorb all the dmt from a basic solution;

Just assume that in each pull 50% of total dmt is recovered

1st pull: one gets a total of 50% of it out
2nd pull: one gets a total of 75% of it out
3rd pull: one gets a total of 87.5 of it out
and so on...

Just by making a "one big pull" in this particular example you may get 65% out, definitely far from efficient.

That’s not quite right Ronue.

The equilibrium laws are only important if the alkaloid is not completely freebased or if it’s slightly soluble in water as freebase. If the alkaloid is completely insoluble in water, and you mix it enough with just one portion of non-polar solvent, all of it goes into the non-polar solvent (if it’s soluble in it).

Take sodium hydroxide for example. If you put sodium hydroxide in naphtha and you shake it a few times with one portion of water, all of the sodium hydroxide goes into the water. None at all stays in the naphtha because it’s insoluble in naphtha so equilibrium laws do not apply.

Besides equilibrium laws which do not always apply (as with the above example), you must not forgot about the surface area of the two solvents. When you use a smaller amount of non-polar solvent, more of it’s molecules are surrounded by the water when you shake it or mix it. Because of this it’s always more efficient to have more water than non-polar solvent when extracting into the non-polar solvent. The higher the water to non-polar solvent ratio is, the more efficient the extraction is.

Think of it like this. Here H is water and N is naphtha:

N N N N
N N N N
N N N N
H H H H
H H H H
H H H H

Ok, now we shake it and get this before it settles down:

N H N H
H N H N
N H N H
H N H N
N H N H
H N H N

Look at the molecules of the solvents. Each N is touching both N and H. This is not efficient. N cannot extract from N.

Ok, now change the H to N ratio in favor of the H and you have this:

N N N N
H H H H
H H H H
H H H H

Ok, now we shake it and get this before it settles down:

H N H H
H H H N
N H H H
H H N H

In this case, all N molecules are completely surrounded by H molecules. Because of this, extraction is more far more efficient. So if we extract 3 times with that ratio, regardless of equilibrium laws, we get far more surface contact so that our extraction is much more efficient.

Here’s the opposite example:

N N N N
N N N N
N N N N
H H H H

Ok, now we shake it and get this before it settles down:

N H N N
N N N H
H N N N
N N H N

In that case, H is surrounded by N. Most N molecules are touching other N molecules. Because N cannot extract from N, this is very inefficient. However, if there are no equilibrium laws at play, and the alkaloid is soluble in N and completely insoluble in H then this will work very well and be faster.

In the real world there are many more things to consider. There can be elements in the solvents interfering with the extraction process. For example, something causing emulsions can mess up everything.

Also, there may be substances in the water that the alkaloid is clinging to that is preventing it from leaving the water. Also, there could be things in the water like salt which would change the solubility of the alkaloid in favor on the non-polar solvent. There are countless things at play here. You can’t simply apply one rule because plants are a complex mix of molecules, not just water, DMT, and naphtha. All of the molecules present affect the extraction process in slightly different ways.

The whole thing is quite complex. With any given plant, there are hundreds of molecules at play.

For example, if there is chlorophyll present. This will compete with the DMT for the non-polar solvent and make DMT extraction less efficient. This is why defats are important during the acid stage. But even after a defat, adding base can change the solubility of more than just the alkaloids causing other non-alkaloid compounds to become soluble in the non-polar solvent. For example, some compounds are insoluble in sodium hydroxide solutions, and so adding sodium hydroxide as a base, while not altering those compounds chemically, it might push them into the non-polar solvent by making them insoluble in the water.

 

[amor_fati]

I was always under the impression that after basifying an aqueous solution containing an alkaloid in salt form releases the alkaloid in non-polar freebase form, and that it resides in the aqueous solution as a suspension of freebase sediment and aqueous solution. This would mean that the freebase would eventually sediment out or can be caused to through mechanical means, or if put into a non-polar solution, would become an oil--thus not miscible in water. Unless the non-polar solution is super-saturated, the freebase will remain in the non-polar solution.

So the goal in NPS pulls is to bring a sufficient amount of the NPS's molecules in contact with all of the freebase molecules, which generally tend to be well-dispersed within the aqueous solution unless left to sediment--assuming no other substances inhibit this process. So mix well, and use minimal amounts if you want the process to go quickly. If using a solvent like DCM--with which you can use more precise calculations due to its reliability--use the calculated amount and give it a lot of mixing (I imagine a magnetic stirrer would be indispensable).

My question would be whether the sediment will always sink, even with an NPS layer floating atop the aqueous? Or would the sediment tend to float to the NPS. Also, whether your average basified MHRB solution will allow the freebase to sediment at all?

 

[69ron]

I was always under the impression that after basifying an aqueous solution containing an alkaloid in salt form releases the alkaloid in non-polar freebase form, and that it resides in the aqueous solution as a suspension of freebase sediment and aqueous solution. This would mean that the freebase would eventually sediment out or can be caused to through mechanical means, or if put into a non-polar solution, would become an oil--thus not miscible in water. Unless the non-polar solution is super-saturated, the freebase will remain in the non-polar solution.

That’s true for some, but not all alkaloids.

Harmine is so insoluble in water that is starts rapidly falling out of the water and collecting at the bottom of the container once it’s freebased. So no non-polar solvent is even needed.

An opposite example is 5-HO-DMT (bufotenine) which is soluble in alkali and will never sediment out of the water when freebased. So in order to extract it from water, you need several pulls using another solvent it is also soluble in that isn’t soluble in the water. In this case DCM is a good choice. Freebase 5-HO-DMT is slightly more soluble in DCM than alkali, and so it can be extracted into the DCM with about 5 pulls of DCM.

DMT is more like what you’re talking about above. It’s a little bit soluble in water, so it won’t fall out rapidly and remains as a suspension in the water for a long time after it is freebased. In this case a non-polar solvent is needed to quickly get the DMT out of the water.

 

[Infundibulum]

Take sodium hydroxide for example. If you put sodium hydroxide in naphtha and you shake it a few times with one portion of water, all of the sodium hydroxide goes into the water. None at all stays in the naphtha because it’s insoluble in naphtha so equilibrium laws do not apply.

69ron, I may be fairly drunk at this very point to give a decent answer, but when drawing this example I had in mind a far more complex solution than just NaOH, water and naphtha.

So to speak, putative clathrate structures in the basified solution could chelate freebased dmt thus making it less available to a NP solvent. In which case one may have an "equilibrium" of availabel freebased dmt versus an unavailable freebased dmt.

but I couldn;t read whole of your post, so feel free to shoot me if I am wrong in my hypothesis...

 

[69ron]

Take sodium hydroxide for example. If you put sodium hydroxide in naphtha and you shake it a few times with one portion of water, all of the sodium hydroxide goes into the water. None at all stays in the naphtha because it’s insoluble in naphtha so equilibrium laws do not apply.

69ron, I may be fairly drunk at this very point to give a decent answer, but when drawing this example I had in mind a far more complex solution than just NaOH, water and naphtha.

So to speak, putative clathrate structures in the basified solution could chelate freebased dmt thus making it less available to a NP solvent. In which case one may have an "equilibrium" of availabel freebased dmt versus an unavailable freebased dmt.

but I couldn;t read whole of your post, so feel free to shoot me if I am wrong in my hypothesis...

You seem quite intelligent Ronue. I was also saying something very similar up above.

There’s more than a few forces at play here. It’s not so black and white as you know. The plant extract is a mix of hundreds of molecules, and each one effects the extraction in a slightly different way.

Some molecules will aid DMT going into the non-polar solvent.

Some will possibly get in its way as you state above.

Some will compete with it. For example, if 1 ml of solvent X could only hold 100 mg of DMT, or 100 mg of 5-MeO-DMT, and 5-MeO-DMT was more rapidly soluble in solvent X, then the solvent would dissolve more 5-MeO-DMT than DMT. So the solvent would hold maybe 75 mg of 5-MeO-DMT and 25 mg of DMT, totaling 100 mg of its maximum capacity. It would take 1 ml more solvent to dissolve the remaining 75 mg of DMT and 25 mg of 5-MeO-DMT. The first 1 ml would be high in 5-MeO-DMT, and the second 1 ml would be high in DMT. Similar things happen during extractions, and many have noticed it. Usually the first pull with naphtha contains the most DMT. The second pull usually contains more impurities. It’s a similar thing at play where solvency is a big force.

There are countless examples of these types of interactions that really do make extraction quite complex on the molecular level.

 

[Infundibulum]

There are countless examples of these types of interactions that really do make extraction quite complex on the molecular level.

So true....in reality things are far more complex than the typical reductionist extraction model people (like us!) tend to propose.

But I guess most of us agree that multiple pulls are better than a big single pull, even though the fine explanation for that may still be quite debatable!

 

[69ron]

Yup.

 

[polytrip]

I have little knowledge of chemistry, but i'm thinking; what if you would do just two pulls; one hot naphta pull and one toluene pull, and you would mix the two solvents. I would say that DMT is less solvable in this mixture of toluene and naphta then in just toluene so then you could freeze precipitate it maybe. This would give the benefits of naphta and toluene combined; you can get as much alkaloïds as with toluene and you can freeze precipitate the stuff, so you don't have to evaporate it and you get a cleaner result.
But maybe i'm wrong. If there is anybody who can prevent me from trying this out and causing a great disaster, by providing me with some sharp insights into the solvenbt-chemistry...please do.

 

[WSaged]

The only problems I have been having lately have related to purely physical considerations. I don't have a good method of separating layers (all of the basters and droppers I have used do not work well; also, how do you employ a separatory funnel if the basic layer clings to the sides of the container?) and I was wondering why exactly you need to do multiple pulls of solvent. Wouldn't using more solvent simply pull more alkaloids out, so that you could do one pull and be done with it?

Hey man,
I use and love my separatory funnel quite a lot!!!
I don't know how you chaps using basters and such, have any hair left on your heads!
I wouldn't want to try & do an extraction without one!!

Mine is only a 500ml Sep Funnel, but I prefer to keep my extractions down to a smaller size anyway, I'm only extracting 100g to 150g of MHRB at a time, so it has never been too small for me.
BTW, I got the Sep Funnel on Ebay for a little under $40 with shipping. One can pretty much obtain any lab glass one might need on Ebay, anonymously, with no questions asked. ...And I think, usually cheaper too!!

how do you employ a separatory funnel if the basic layer clings to the sides of the container?

First, the higher the pH, the less "sticky" it will be. Also less emulsions with higher pH.
Other than that little tid-bit, I wait for the layers to separate completely, then very slowly let the bottom layer pour out into a beaker or something. You don't just open the stopcock & let the bottom layer rush out, you need to open it just a little, so the liquid comes out slowly & smoothly. I adjust the speed of the flow, based on how much the base layer (bottom) is sticking to the sides as the level drops, if you do it slower, the less it sticks.
Once the majority of the base layer has been drained and there is just a few little balls of base solution left in the funnel with the Naptha, I take the funnel out of the stand and swirl the Naptha around in the funnel very fast. This creates a small whirlpool effect, which will cause the base solution stuck to the sides & such, to coagulate together. I then let it sit for a few minutes and slowly drain that little bit of base solution out, then repeat it again & again until no more base solution is coagulating together when I swirl. Really making sure there is no base solution left in the Naptha on the last of the three pulls.
Also, as the solutions are separating into their polar layers & any emulations are going away, holding the funnel under hot water helps to keep the base solution from sticking in the first place. It also helps to get rid of any emulations faster and of course, keeping the liquids hot during this entire process propagates the migration of DMT from the bark solution into the Naptha.

and I was wondering why exactly you need to do multiple pulls of solvent.

As far as needing to do all three solvent pulls goes, while I was finishing up the first Naptha pull on a recent extraction, I accidentally spilled my bark solution all over the counter top and was left with only the one Naptha pull still sitting in the Sep Funnel.
So I did the rest of the tek on just that first pulls worth of Naptha.
Much to my surprise, my yield was not that much smaller in the end!!!

I usually get around .8mg to 1g of beautiful, clear-to-white shards of spice from 100 to 150 grams of powdered MHRB. Doing three acid soaks, three Naptha pulls (all the defatting & washing steps etc..) and freeze precipitating the DMT out of the solvent in the end.
This time, doing only one solvent pull, I still ended up with right around .7mg of off-white spice!!! It wasn't as clean as what I normally yield but it was just as effective and it wasn't dirty yellow spice or anything like that, just not my regular clear shards.
I still normally do all three recommended pulls, but if your wanting to be lazy, or quick about things, you can get away with a large percentage of the spice with just the ONE pull.
In my experience, well over 50% of the DMT in the bark comes out during pull #1!!
Pulls 2 & 3 are there more for "clean up", making sure as much of the DMT is retrieved as possible.

One last thing, if this "lab" your thinking about putting together is going to be mainly for extracting plant "spices", you may want to think about keeping it rather small and "undetectable".
I my experience, a modern day "urban-shaman" can pretty much do anything he or she may need to do, this side of synthesizing, with just a few basic lab pieces.
Not that my setup is perfect, or "ideal" by anyone else's standards, but here is a list of the essential pieces I'm using. I've always been able to do everything I've needed to do with just these few lab items, that cost me around $300-$400 total on Ebay. I did not buy them all at once.

1) Seperatory Funnel (with a stand!) - (mine is a small one, only 500ml)
2) Buchner Funnel/Filtering Setup - (**explained below)
3) Some graduated (milliliters marked) Beakers - (I have two 1000ml beakers, four 50ml beakers & a box of ten 500ml beakers, only 8 of them are left. Get more beakers than you need, you will break a few)
4) Two 1000ml Flasks - (I prefer these over beakers, for the acid soak step)
5) Digital pH Meter - (do not skimp on this one, worth every penny!! pH strips just don't work nearly as well)
6) A Thermometer or two - (I use an analog espresso thermometer to monitor the temp of my heat bath & a digital espresso thermometer to spot check the various liquids throughout the process)
7) Turkey Baster - (preferably glass, but these are becoming quite hard to find!)
A box of Plastic Wrap and various sizes of Rubber Bands

(**)
My "Buchner Funnel/Filtering Setup" consists of a "Buchner funnel", which is a one piece, ceramic filtering funnel, with a "cup" for the top half, that has holes in the floor of the cup where you would place a "filter paper".
The funnel is placed into the top of a "vacuum flask" and the liquid is poured into the top of the funnel. You then use a hand operated "vacuum pump" to suck the air out of the flask, which creates a vacuum inside of the flask, pulling the liquid in the funnel above, through the filter paper, cleaning the liquid, or collecting a solid out of the liquid.

I use a 110mm Buchner funnel to filter the bark out of the solution during the acid soaking step.
I also use a much smaller, 70mm Buchner funnel to collect the DMT crystals from the Naptha after freeze precipitating. After all of the Naptha has been sucked through the filter, I continue pumping the vacuum for about a minute or so, which helps to dry out the DMT crystals and the now wet filter paper before carefully taking the paper out of the funnel to let it dry completely & scraping the DMT off of the filter paper and into storage.
I'm using the same 500ml vacuum flask for both of these filtering steps.

I got the entire Buchner filtering setup on Ebay for $50-$60.
It included everything necessary to start using it.
It came with:
500ml Vacuum Flask, with the correct type of stopper
110mm Buchner Funnel
Box of Filter papers
& the Hand Operated Vacuum Pump with connection hose
I later bought the 70mm Buchner funnel and filter papers.
I'd like to buy a 1000ml vacuum flask in the near future to help make filtering the acid soak much quicker but its not necessary, it would just be a bit quicker.
The Vacuum Pump that came with it was kind of cheap & flimsy, it ended up breaking during the second extraction I used it on. So I replaced it with a much better one that cost me around $60 for the Vacuum Pump alone. So be careful with the cheaper ones, you don't need much more than 8 to 12 pumps anyway, even with a vacuum you still have to wait a little while for everything to drain through. I broke mine by create too strong of a vacuum, trying to speed up the filtering process. Sometimes the paper will break if you create too strong a vacuum, too early as well.

All of these pieces fit into just 2 medium sized drawers, out of site & out of mind.

Hope something in all of this info helps you out my friend!!

WS

 

[haplo_09]

Earlier 69 mentioned that he wanted to create the simples extraction tek possible.
Guys, dont you afraid that if too simple tek were to be invented. It's popularity would attract too many stupid users which will lead to banning MHRB and simmilar plants. Do we really want to the same thing to happen to MHRB as it happened to salvia, do we?

 

[amor_fati]

Earlier 69 mentioned that he wanted to create the simples extraction tek possible.
Guys, dont you afraid that if too simple tek were to be invented. It's popularity would attract too many stupid users which will lead to banning MHRB and simmilar plants. Do we really want to the same thing to happen to MHRB as it happened to salvia, do we?

I think the extraction tek's out there are quite simple as they are, and that if they're going to draw any heat, they've already got the potential. I don't think that the goal here is so much "DMT for Dummies" as simply making DMT production more efficient (less suspicious and expensive chemicals, less suspicious and expensive equipment, and less time spent) and more available in regard to cost. The science behind it is somewhat demanding, although forgiving, and the spice itself is fairly selective in those it draws in; so these factors in themselves are and will remain as the primary means of selection.

Your points are certainly valid, but the information is out there and flourishing. Most of us are propagating and cultivating the information in the same way we inherited it. Besides, the only real way we can keep this stable is through free and reliable information exchange. These efforts are meant to improve the entirety of the DMT experience. I hardly feel that salvia has been handled which such care and concern as DMT has.



I would certainly love to be using buchner funnel/vaccum flask setup and a proper separatory funnel, but I can hardly justify my expenditures as it is. The only high dollar item I couldn't do without is my digital ph meter. Proper transfer pipettes and a pyrex dish are are certainly inexpendible. Classic chianti bottle make great separatory funnels for mass-extractions; just force the top layer into the bottle neck and pull it right out.

 

[69ron]

Earlier 69 mentioned that he wanted to create the simples extraction tek possible.
Guys, dont you afraid that if too simple tek were to be invented. It's popularity would attract too many stupid users which will lead to banning MHRB and simmilar plants. Do we really want to the same thing to happen to MHRB as it happened to salvia, do we?

I understand the concern here. I don’t think it’s realistic though. For example, you can extract harmine and harmaline with just water, vinegar, and salt. It’s so easy and requires only chemicals found at the local grocery store, and yet very few people are extracting it and those two chemicals remain legal in many parts of the world. You can even buy them in pure form legally online in many places. But still, almost no one is using these drugs.

Harmaline is quite a nice experience at 100 mg if pure. Harmine is even more so at 200 mg. SWIM has had wonderful visions with just those alone and sometimes prefers them to DMT.

Unlike harmine, harmaline, or even salvia, DMT is already illegal in most countries. Extraction of DMT is also illegal in most countries. That in itself is a deterrent. You simply cannot buy DMT extracts on-line in most countries.

The average user wants something they can just purchase readily. They are not going to spend time learning about plants and extraction techniques. They’ll either buy extracts on-line or illegal drugs from the black market.

Also, the cost of producing DMT from plant sources is very high. With the lack of a good market for it’s sale, drug manufacturers on the black market would rather sell LSD. It’s just as illegal and many times cheaper to produce. Everyone's heard of LSD or "acid" and almost no one has heard of DMT. DMT sounds like some new drug to most people who haven’t heard of it, even though it’s use is hundreds of years old. People are afraid to try new things and will steer away from anyone on the black market trying to sell them something they haven’t heard of before, especially when the price is many times higher than the price of LSD.

The fact is that very few people are interested in DMT. Even when it was completely legal all around the world prier to the 1960’s, very few people were actually using it. Probably less than 0.01% of the population was actually using it. It became illegal in most countries because of widespread LSD use which frightened the governments around the world because LSD was associated with protesting and similar self empowering behavior which governments do not like.

I just can’t imagine DMT ever becoming popular. Only really hardcore psychonauts are interesting in it.

Look at how easy it is to make Yopo! All you need is water and pickling lime. And yet, very few people are using it.

I just don’t buy the argument. Now if we were talking about cocaine, or something similar to that, then yes I would agree 100%. But we are not. We are talking about one of the most powerful psychedelic chemicals there is, and there’s just not a large fan base for it and probably never will be.

 

[Spiceman]

I have to agree with 69ron here ... I dont ever see it becoming that popular.. however I did run across youtube vids the other day of people smoking it ... thats what happened to sally.. too much media. However I must also add... I had an experience while in hyperspace last fall .. and the knowledge that the spice would be under persecution very soon ... and some of the materials .. in paticular mhrb would not be available to us very long in the US . Maybe I was just tripping but thats a deep philosophical question .. it goes back to "is it a real universe we visit or our own brains causing the trip? " Peace!